Drakon

by Gisby, Annette

“Well, look then.” But she didn't want to. This wasn't Jonathan; this was some nightmare. There was something odd about the way he was standing, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “Have you hurt your hands?” she said. Maybe if she kept talking he wouldn't do anything.

  “There's nothing wrong with me!” he said and the angry voice did not belong to Jonathan.

  “Who are you?” demanded Andrea, more frightened than she cared to admit. Before he had time to reply, the cabin door opened and Jonathan stood there holding a breakfast tray.

  “Who the hell are you?” shrieked Jonathan, the real Jonathan.

  “You know who I am. You won't be able to keep her from me. I'll find her wherever you go,” and suddenly, as if he'd never been there, he vanished. Andrea stared at the space where he'd been. She should feel like screaming, but all she felt was numb.

  “I brought you some breakfast,” said Jonathan, at least she hoped it was Jonathan. How was she to be sure of anything ever again?

  “Thanks,” she said as he set the tray down on the bed. Neither of them referred to what had just happened.

  Had she imagined it? She did have a vivid imagination, but it had felt real, nothing like a daydream. There was a difference between fantasy and reality and no matter how much she wished it hadn't happened, she knew it had. Jonathan poured her a cup of strong black coffee and put lots of sugar in it.

  “Here, drink this,” he said as he handed her the cup. She drank it and felt a little better, even though she didn't like sugar in her coffee. For the shock, she realized. He'd given it to her to help the shock. So he hadn't imagined it either. A man the exact double of Jonathan had somehow got into their cabin and then had disappeared into thin air. It should have been impossible, but they'd both seen it happen. What on earth was going on?

  “I've left some clothes in the bathroom, if you want to get dressed before breakfast,” said Jonathan, averting his eyes from her.

  “Oh, thanks,” she said. She paused at the door. “Can you whistle?” she asked.

  “Whistle? No, I've never been able to.” Jonathan began to butter some toast and she left him to it. At least she knew the man in the bathroom had never been Jonathan. She surveyed herself in the mirror and let out a weary sigh. Jonathan was behaving like a perfect gentleman and she wasn't sure she wanted him to. She wanted him to kiss her, kiss her so forcefully that he'd take her breath away and then he'd lift her up in his arms and lay her down on the bed and then...her thoughts stopped there. It made her go weak at the knees just thinking about it. She knew what would happen next, but the thought of actually doing it filled her with a nameless terror. Nameless but not faceless, a man had tried to rape her, the man who broke her legs, and she had forgotten. How could she have forgotten something like that? And Jonathan was there. Jonathan had stopped him.

  Jonathan had finished his toast and was starting on some cereal when she finally emerged from the bathroom. She wanted to rant and rave at him because he was sitting there so calmly. How could he be so calm when she was in turmoil?

  “I've asked Lucy to come to Pompeii with us, is that all right?” he asked as Andrea helped herself to the last few slices of toast.

  “Of course,” she replied, politeness winning out over her true feelings. She didn't want anyone to go with them. Was it too much to ask that she was alone with her husband on their honeymoon?

  Obviously it was.

  Was Jonathan afraid of being alone with her? Afraid he might not be able to resist her if there was no one else around? She smiled a secret smile. Maybe there was hope for her and Jonathan after all.

  They docked at Naples shortly after nine and Andrea couldn't help but feel a frisson of excitement as they disembarked. Pompeii. To think she'd actually see the place where such a tragic thing had happened. All those people buried by the volcanic ash that fell from Vesuvius. She was glad that it had happened long ago and wasn't likely to happen again, at least she hoped it wouldn't.

  Jonathan sat beside her on the coach and she was grateful for that, at least. Lucy sat in front of them, but spent most of the journey turning around to talk to them. Andrea was glad of the distraction. The nearer she got to Pompeii, the sicker she was feeling. She'd be glad when this journey was over and she could get off this bus. Looking out the window didn't help, as it usually did. She caught glimpses of olive groves and orange and lemon trees growing everywhere, even in the towns and the heady scent of citrus wafted through the open windows.

  At last they arrived. Vesuvius was a dark blob in the distance, the summit wreathed in cloud. Other than that the sky was a clear ocean blue, shimmering in the heat. There was a large queue forming at the entrance to the ruins and Andrea dreaded the thought of standing out here in the sun for any length of time. She'd forgotten her hat. Her head was beginning to ache already. She needn't have worried. Their excursion organizer had bought their tickets in advance and went around handing them out.

  “Now remember everyone, the coach leaves at four, so please be back here by three forty five at the latest. Have a nice time and I'll see you all later. Those of you who have booked the guided tour, meet me inside the gates in fifteen minutes.” About half the people on the coach followed the guide into the ruins.

  “I didn't book the tour,” said Jonathan. “I thought we could explore on our own. That way we can do it at our own pace.”

  “What a good idea,” said Lucy.

  There was a stall outside the gate selling guidebooks and souvenirs. Jonathan bought a guidebook while Lucy and Andrea went straight in. Andrea wasn't prepared for the wave of nausea, which hit her as soon as she entered the gates. Surely she shouldn't feel ill now? Not now she was off the coach?

  She swallowed and took a deep breath to try and stop herself from throwing up. The three of them wandered first to the forum, passing almost intact buildings on the way. Andrea was surprised how much of it remained standing. She thought all they'd see would be the remains of buildings, ankle high walls and no roofs. But no, most of the buildings remained and some even had a roof and wooden doors.

  And the mosaics! Such colours that could still be seen. In one of the bathhouses there was a black and white mosaic with dolphins on the floor. She could almost hear the people laughing and talking.

  It was that sort of place.

  Echoing. And all the echoes were echoes of the past.

  As they went into the sunlight again, Andrea shielded her eyes with her hand. Was she seeing things? There were chariots going up and down the road and men wandering about in togas and tunics. She blinked, but when she opened her eyes they were still there. Perhaps there was a re-enactment of some sort? A day in the life of Pompeii?

  Andrea noticed a little girl standing on her own across the road from her, looking lost. The sleeveless tunic she wore was far too long for her and Andrea thought if the child moved she would trip. The girl turned her blue eyes on Andrea and she felt herself grow weak.

  Suddenly she felt everything. Everything these people had gone through. Their joy at a wedding, at the birth of a baby. Their sorrow at death. And their horror. The horror of the knowledge that they were going to die, and die horribly. It felt like a bitter taste in her mouth. A taste that would never go away.

  A taste of ashes.

  Andrea tried to block all of it out, but it was impossible. Her mind was like a radio picking up thousands of signals, but she didn't know where the off switch was.

  “No!” shrieked Andrea and thrust her hands over her ears as if that would stop the voices. No, for they were in her mind but they were real. She heard the screams of them all as they realized the volcano was erupting and there was no time for escape. And then the silence. As if the world no longer existed.

  She felt the taste of death in her mouth.

  “Andrea! Are you all right?” she didn't know who asked the question, whether it was Jonathan or Lucy who spoke. She didn't care. She was unable to reply, as she was violently sick.

  It was Jonathan w
ho held her and pushed her hair away from her face. Andrea just couldn't stop throwing up. She wanted to purge every feeling away from her, the horrible taste away from her mouth and throat.

  “Come on, I'll take you back to the coach,” said Lucy. But that just made it worse. The thought of that journey made Andrea sick again. Eventually there was nothing left to bring up except sour bile, but still she couldn't stop retching. She sank to her knees, pulling Jonathan with her.

  “It's all right, it's all right,” soothed Jonathan holding Andrea in his arms. Eventually Andrea had calmed down enough to move. Lucy and Jonathan supported her between them as they walked back to the coach. She was trembling, unsteady on her feet. They shouldn't have come here. They shouldn't. How was she to bear it? How could she bear the pain of so many people? And that little girl. The look of absolute terror on her face. That image would haunt her for the rest of her life.

  “I'm sorry, Andrea I should never have brought you here. What with you being a sensitive.” Jonathan scuffed his shoes along the gravel in the coach park.

  “What!” Burst out Lucy. “Andrea's a sensitive and you brought her here? Here! How could you have been so stupid?”

  Andrea wasn't sure that she wanted them to be arguing, especially over her but she felt too weak to prevent it.

  “What's a sensitive?” she asked quietly. Lucy stared at her and then at Jonathan.

  “She doesn't know? You haven't told her? What have you told her, Jonathan?”

  “Nothing, I didn't think she needed to know.”

  “How's she supposed to protect herself if she doesn't know how? Tell her then. Now!”

  “Not here. When we're back on the ship. We need some privacy, Lucy, you should know that.”

  “Yes, I'm sorry. I just got so angry with you. I thought you had more sense. Andrea's a grown woman, not a child. You can't just keep her in the dark forever, you know. I can't believe she's survived this long without knowing what to do.” Lucy seemed to have calmed down somewhat. The same could not be said for Andrea. What were they talking about?

  And did she really want to find out?

  The journey back on the coach wasn't as bad as Andrea had feared. In fact, the further they got from Pompeii, the more the sickness receded. Lucy sat beside her on the coach, Jonathan a few seats behind.

  “Jonathan must have told you something, surely,” said Lucy.

  “Not really. All he said was that he could protect me if we were married.”

  “Yes, that's true. There's power in the joining of two bodies. Jonathan knows that. It's the first sensible thing he's done.”

  Andrea shifted in her seat. How could she tell Lucy, that Jonathan did not seem at all interested in the consummation of their marriage?

  “I'm a - I mean we haven't - er -” Andrea's face got redder as she tried to explain. Lucy raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  “Can't he even get that right?”

  They were silent for the rest of the journey. Andrea wished now that she'd never fallen in love with him, that she'd never married him, that they'd never gone on this stupid cruise. The tears rolled silently down her cheek.

  Lucy squeezed her hand in comfort, as if she knew words weren't needed. Andrea wished Jonathan would offer her comfort, but all he seemed to do was cause her pain. Pain as raw as an open wound. The worst pain in the world. Unrequited love. How could you love someone and they not love you back?

  Andrea was glad when they were back aboard ship, away from Pompeii and all that horror. She never wanted to go through something like that ever again. Lucy walked them to their cabin and left them standing in the corridor unsure of what to say to each other. After all they'd been through together, what had gone wrong?

  Andrea looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes and her breath caught in her throat. He was looking at her with so much tenderness and dare she hope – love?

  “I'm sorry, Andrea. I should never have taken you there. I knew what might happen, and I never told you how to prevent it.”

  Suddenly the ship lurched and Andrea was thrown into his arms. They stayed there in silence for what seemed like eternity. Jonathan broke the spell.

  “We'd better go in and I'll try and explain. I hardly know where to begin.”

  Andrea knew how she wanted him to begin - with a kiss, but that wasn't what he was talking about. She followed him reluctantly into the cabin. He sat down on the dressing table stool; Andrea sat down on the edge of the bed directly opposite him and waited.

  “Since in a way, this is a story, I'll tell it like one. How about if I start it with once upon a time?”

  “Is it a fairy story, then?” asked Andrea, raising her eyebrow.

  “You'll see. Once upon a time and far away there lived two races of people. One of these races were called human, the other were the Drakon. The Drakon looked like humans but they were very different, their women especially.

  “When a Drakon girl reached puberty, she came into her powers, powers that only rarely were bestowed on Drakon males. The Drakon females could read minds, they could heal, they could transport from one place to the other by just thinking about where they wanted to go.

  “It was a matriarchal society. It had to be for the women usually had these special powers. Occasionally a boy would be born with the powers and then there would be a war over who should rule, the men or the women.

  “They lived quite peacefully alongside the humans; they helped them with their illnesses and diseases, cured people and helped people find lost objects, things like that. The Drakon were also psychic to a certain degree and knew when storms were coming or when there was going to be an eclipse.

  “At first the humans relied on the Drakon to foretell such events, but gradually they became afraid and blamed the Drakon for causing the storms or the crops to rot. There was another reason the humans became afraid. The Drakon reached thirty or so, but after that they didn't age-”

  “You mean they were immortal?” asked Andrea.

  “No, they could die. Very easily, in fact, but never from old age. They just didn't get any older. They realized this was frightening their neighbours so they made it appear as though they looked the right age. The Drakon now began to look like people in their sixties and their eighties, but in reality they still looked about thirty.”

  “A fairy glamour?” asked Andrea, trying not to laugh.

  “Something like that. They could also change their appearance, so that they looked like someone totally different. Gradually the Drakon began to hide away from humans, afraid of what they might do to them. They had seen the wars of the humans, the slaughter.

  “When they had a war, no one was killed. It was a war of the mind and the strongest mind won and they ruled a tribe until they were challenged in their turn. But then something happened to the Drakon. Maybe because they had been living near humans too long. They became violent, especially the men. They had seen how the human men ruled the human women and they wanted to do that too, even though very few men had the Drakon power.

  “The only way they could do it was by force, by killing the women. After they'd butchered half their number, they realized that if they kept killing all the women, there wouldn't be any more Drakon, they would die out.

  “So they kept the remaining women as brood mares, keeping them pregnant hoping that they would be so exhausted that they could never escape from them. Some of the Drakon women did escape and lived on their own, not as a group any more. They were too afraid of the violence recurring.

  “They were considered odd by their human neighbours, but were accepted as humans for the most part. Rumours spread however, of their powers, although they tried to keep them hidden. They knew that humans would no longer accept these strange powers without question. They wanted to know how they got them and came up with outlandish explanations.

  “They were fairies or the little people, but the most dangerous rumour of all was that they had sold their soul to the devil and were witches. Even an accusation of
witchcraft was enough to get people killed in the past.”

  “How awful! You mean the Drakon were what we might call witches?”

  “I don't know if there are such things as witches, Andrea. I do know lots of people were killed accused of being one, the Drakon making up a large proportion of that number. Maybe being a Drakon is the same as being a witch, I just don't know.”

  “But what has all this got to do with what happened at Pompeii?” asked Andrea. Jonathan shook his head. “I thought you'd have realized by now, Andrea. You're a Drakon.”

  “No!” screamed Andrea. “I don't believe you! You've made that up!” It couldn't be true.

  She couldn't be part of some lost race. She was human, wasn't she?

  “But I'm not a devil worshipper,” protested Andrea

  “I didn't say you were. The Drakon were accused of it, I didn't say they actually were devil worshippers. You must have realized you were different. That's why you were attacked. That's why all the women were attacked. He knew somehow.” Andrea's hand went to the back of her neck, the site of her scar.

  “Why were we attacked?”

  “Why else? Power. The Drakon women have it and they want it. Why do you think you were almost raped? They want to create an army with all these powers, an army of men. But the powers are only normally passed through the female line. They're still experimenting, trying to get the perfect male soldier. If you'd been made pregnant with a girl, they would have made you abort it. They only want the male line.” Andrea got up from the bed and then sat back down again. It was all so much to take in. And what were the Drakon anyway? Witches? Fairies? Or something so strange that they were totally unknown?

  “Is that why you need to protect me? Because I'm Drakon?” asked Andrea and then realized. She'd called herself Drakon. Was she beginning to accept this strange tale as the truth?

  “Who was that man?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

  “What man?”

  “The one who appeared and then disappeared in our cabin?”

  “Oh. That was Dr. Haroldson. He's the one you need protecting from.”